Meta Monday – Feln Tempo

Hello and welcome back to another instillation of Meta Monday! I have decided to include a short review of the last week, through my experience, in the past few posts. This has been super enjoyable for me to do, so I plan to continue, and hope it can help people get an idea of what to look out for or what might be fun to play.

This week was a big week for Eternal! We are coming off the back of an expansion release, and the meta was sorting itself out. As some of you may have noticed, things have taken a turn for the midrange/control. My laddering experience this week was more or less “midrange soup”, meaning a variety of midrange decks, slamming big creatures against one another. Aggro seemed practically non-existent, with the exception of Paradox foiling my streaks of jank at least twice! I am pleased to say that no one deck seemed to be so prevalent or oppressive that I felt the need to make a “meta call” with my decks as much. I mostly played what I wanted to, and was able to see some amount of success with that. The decks I championed most this week were Sentinel Reanimator (goes over the top of a lot of the other midrange decks), FTP Curiox of Creation, Vodakombo and Feln Control.

I forgot how much I loved Feln Control until TinMan reminded me via their recent Reddit posts (definitely subscribe to their YouTube too). The deck is very versatile, and does very well in a midrange meta. It also can out pace control decks (other than Armory, it’s okay to just concede when you see Sword of Icaria) and stave off aggro. Aegis based aggro decks are a bit harder, but Feln Control is probably my top pick for this coming week because…

TonyGeeee won the invitational with Argenport Mid! Congrats to him and all other competitors in the event this weekend. Starting on Friday, with the tiebreaker matches being streamed through RNG’s Twitch, we got a full weekend of really great Eternal coverage! Lots of really great matches, definitely worth going back and watching if you have not had a chance. With three AP Mid decks in the top 8 of the invitational, I expect an uptick in its prevalence on ladder this week. For me, Feln Control is a comfortable deck to beat up on the Cow based strategy, however I am sure there will be a plethora of decks tuned to do the same. AP Mid was a great choice for the tournament this weekend, and it’s results really showcased that. Big props to Team Rankstar’s own HeyWhyYou and Magikarp for making it to top 4!

The meta for the invitation was pretty diverse, with players bringing tried and true classics, as well as a few spicy brews. Although I have been playing Muxosk’s list on ladder, I was rooting Second_Blue and their take on Grenadins. When Dusk Road first came out, Grenadins had a pretty strong ladder presence, and seems to have all but vanished. In the current state of things, I think it has a chance of beating up on the slower decks fairly decently, and does a good job of recovering from a board wipe. Hoping to see some more attention brought back to this gem. Similarly, good to see Chalice, Praxis, Elysian and Traditional Armory poking their faces out again!

Midrange metas provide a safe haven for splashy “Timmy” decks and other off beat tempo lists to spread their wings a bit. This week, we wanted to take another look at a Team Rankstar favorite: Feln Tempo. One of the really cool things about this deck is that it uses some unexpected threats, like Bloodscent Avisaur and Midnight Gale, to provide a mostly aerial assault with built in card draw and Lifesteal. Ripknife Assassin added some new technology to the deck that provides an early blocker, as well as a healthy amount of aggression to the list. The deck, in a previous meta, may have been just a bit too slow for what it does, but I really think Ripknife Assassin was a missing piece of the puzzle. Impending Doom, Rindra and Champion of Cunning are mid game power houses that put the pressure on and do a great job of closing out the game in a timely manner. The combined Lifesteal of Midnight Gale, Rindra and Black-Sky Harbinger can pretty much help you stabilize against anything your opponent throws at you. The deck is certainly not without its weaknesses, namely efficient removal backed up with threats or a huge overload of sweepers (Hailstorm can be a problem). Using proactive cards like Sabotage can grab removal from your opponents hands, and Backlash can combat removal drawn later. Lastly, the deck is able to push through the opponents threats with a diverse suite of removal including Permafrost, Annihilate, Vara’s Favor and In Cold Blood.

All in all the deck really excels at winning races, winning top deck wars and feeling pretty slick as it all comes together. If you have Rindra’s sitting around from when you were playing Haunting Scream before the Vara nerf, this a great home for them

for Meta Monday – Feln Tempo

This list is more focused on the “midrange value” plan than recurring threats. The deck is able to maintain pretty decently velocity being as threat dense as it is, but wouldn’t gain much from Screaming back it’s lower costed units. If we added Gorgon or Beastcaller, we would likely run them, however it would be a different deck then!